


East of the Sun, West of the Moon

by yunitsa



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-07
Updated: 2012-10-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 20:26:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunitsa/pseuds/yunitsa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Working with Finch, he feels like the princess in a fairy tale, told never to open the last lock, never to peek in the cellar or light the candle by the bed. Of course any self-respecting princess would look.</i> (Spoilers through 2x02.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	East of the Sun, West of the Moon

“Have you ever been in love, Finch?” he asks. He’s learned by now to keep the questions casual, no “who” or “what”, as though they might as easily apply to Reese himself. Do you ever wish for a normal life? Have you ever been in love?

A moment passes. He keeps on photographing the couple across the street. One of them is the number; her hand is in his. “Yes,” Finch says finally in his ear. 

“How’d that work out for you?”

For a long time, he thinks Finch won’t answer; if he wasn’t so attuned to the sound of Finch’s breathing and the hum of the computer fans, he might think the call had disconnected. 

There’s no triumph at getting a rise out of Finch, this time: Reese regrets having asked. Working with Finch, he feels like the princess in a fairy tale, told never to open the last lock, never to peek in the cellar or light the candle by the bed. Of course any self-respecting princess would look. But if the price is losing Finch – losing their work together – it’s too much to pay for knowledge.

“Update me if there are any developments,” Harold says at last, his voice gone utterly flat. Reese wants to say something, maybe apologize, but now the call really is over.

*

It is some months into their partnership when he first looks at Finch, pinning up a photograph to the glass in the library, and is taken aback by the flood of wanting that sweeps through him. Finch isn’t beautiful, but he is perfectly himself, from the faintly owl-like tufts of his hair to the tips of his polished shoes. He is so self-possessed that it seems impossible that anyone else could possess him, but John wants to try. He wants to make Finch desperate and to make him happy; he wants to know what Finch’s collarbone looks like. The idea is as terrifying as finding a bottomless pit yawning in one’s backyard. There seems to be no end to what he wants.

Finch walks past him on his way back to the computer, and John’s fingers twitch. This isn’t rational, Reese tells himself. It’s a liability. He can’t quite seem to believe it. 

*

“I’ve got a job when I’m not stalking your boyfriend for you, you know,” Fusco grouses on the phone. Reese can see him at the other end of the street, juggling the handset, a hotdog, and a manila folder.

“Jealous, Lionel?” Reese says through gritted teeth. 

“Nah,” Fusco answers, having got used to him by now. “You seem like the overly-possessive type.”

“What do you have for me?” Reese asks, walking up behind him, and Fusco drops the hotdog and tells him about Nathan Ingram.

*

From day to day, he is able to ignore it, the way he has been trained to ignore so many things. He puts the longing inside of a needle, inside of an egg, inside of a bird, inside of a hare, locked in an iron chest at the bottom of his heart, and then he goes about his work, hearing Finch’s voice at the other end of the line. Sometimes he hears it in his dreams too, the worst ones, calm and unhurried, but always expecting John to come through. He comes through.

*

“You know everything about me,” John says, one quiet evening in the library, the rain drumming on the roof. There was a power-cut across the city, and Finch (claiming that a generator in a disused library would make them stand out like a beacon) was working on his laptop surrounded by candles. There was no number that night – “The Machine detects _intent_ , Mr. Reese, and there is no intent behind the weather, no matter what the pundits tell you” – but Reese had come by anyway, turning up his collar against the rain. “And I know almost nothing about you.”

He wonders, idly, if dripping a bit of candlewax on Finch would be enough to make him disappear. Probably only if it damaged his suit.

“Don’t you, Mr. Reese?” Finch says. He does not turn away from the screen, his typing blending with the sound of the rain. John closes his eyes for a moment, the candlelight flickering through his eyelids. 

He ought to have known it then – even as he followed Finch and had Fusco follow him, John ought to have known that he could never put anything past him, never find out anything Finch did not want him to find out. He ought to have known when Finch gave him the address to his new apartment on the back of a business card for _Harold Wren_ , the name Fusco had found out for him, the name Nathan Ingram had known Finch by, perhaps the truest name he had left. But in the end, Reese does not realise until he holds a payphone receiver to his ear, listening to the Machine reel off its code, recognising him for its contingency plan, already in place. 

In the end, it was not his own curiosity that caused Finch to vanish.

*

Of course, John is never really worried, in the time that Harold is gone – Finch is a genius, he can take care of himself. And John will get him back, whoever he has to threaten, whatever it takes. That much is simply a fact. His chief emotion is not anxiety but impatience, with anyone who tries to get in his way.

*

Since they are already at the station, they take the train home. Eventually, he lets go of Harold’s arm.

Finch nods off to sleep before they pass Baltimore, his body tilted against the window, the sedative Root had given him working through his system. Reese sits across from him, his own eyes gritty with exhaustion, and keeps watch – watches Harold sleeping, in a slant of the setting sun, rather than Finch letting John see him sleep. 

Around Newark, Harold twitches awake and straightens, adjusting his glasses. He blinks at John across the table, and John is too tired to know what’s showing on his own face. He knows he ought to speak, to say something about their search for Hanna Frey or how he left Carter in Texas, but he finds himself struck silent. Somewhere deep within him, a needle snaps, an egg cracks, a bird flies free. He presses one palm flat against the table to anchor himself, feeling the vibration of the train, the other still resting on the gun inside his jacket. 

“It’s been a long couple of days,” Harold says quietly, pushing up his glasses again. “For both of us.” There is a bandage across his hand, but it’s clean, no blood showing through. The cuffs hang loose over his wrists with the cufflinks gone. He stretches the uninjured hand across the table, so that his fingertips are just inside John’s. He won’t move any farther than that, but it is far enough. 

“Yes,” John agrees, the word scraping his throat, and reaches to clasp Harold’s hand.

Later, they will return to the library together, and Finch will see the words scrawled across the glass and say, with quiet satisfaction, “I knew you’d be able to go on doing this without me.” And, “I can’t,” John will say, “I really can’t,” and he will take Harold’s face between his hands and press their lips together briefly, staking his claim.

Later, he will take Harold to the loft he has given him, lay him out against the cool grey sheets, kiss every inch of him that is whole and safe. Harold will shut his eyes and clench his hands as though he is enduring it, but afterwards his face will soften, and he will reach for John to touch him in turn. 

For now, he holds fast and lets the numbness and fear drain away from him, lets the train carry them both north into the dying light. 


End file.
